Modern Quilts With A Twist

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Finished the smallest size (41″ x 35″) Lombard Street pattern and I’m about to send it to Studio Stitch, where I’ll be teaching the class. The triangles are all dots, though not polka dots!
I quilted this on my home machine, just following the zigzags in the background, and it worked just fine.
And the backing is a fun fabric I found on the sale rack at Studio Stitch last time I taught there! Win!

I’m teaching this as an introduction to modern paper piecing, of which it’s a great example. Paper piecing makes it easy to get all those nice sharp points, and the arrangement of blocks makes people wonder, “How did she DO that???” It’s always fun to keep people guessing 🙂

After over a year of dawdling, I have finished my quilt from the beautiful Lombard Street pattern by Sassafras Lane Designs.

“Amish on Lombard Street”, my quilt made from a Sassafras Lane pattern

I rarely use patterns, since I prefer to design my own quilts, but this one caught my eye! The “trick” is that it is paper pieced, which helps all those points come out nice and sharp. The pattern is well written and the instructions are clear. I had no trouble from that quarter.

I did have trouble when I decided to quilt it myself, and ended up taking out quilting from the entire quilt, then sending it off to my favorite longarm quilter! She did a great job, and I’m happy to say I had the perfect binding waiting when the quilt came back to me 🙂

And look at that nice angular quilt pattern that reinforces the overall design!

Here’s a picture of the original pattern, courtesy of the Sassafras Lane site:

I haven’t made any of the other patterns from Sassafras Lane, but I was very satisfied with this one, and they certainly have some cheerful and interesting designs. I do recommend checking them out if you like cute modern patterns.

I made a couple of bags using Kraft-Tex for a sturdy bottom section a while back, and wasn’t that happy with it. My review is here, if you want to read it.

Tote bag made with Kraft-Tex for the bottom section

However, when I got some lovely bird fabric in a guild swap, I decided to make another tote bag and use Kraft-Tex to protect the bottom again. I pre-washed the Kraft-Tex to soften it a little, then crumpled it in my hands to soften it a little more.

Since I didn’t really want the thick Kraft-Tex in the seams, the shortage worked out OK

I had BARELY enough for a shorter-than-recommended bottom section, but it worked out fine. I used the same pattern as before, the Market Tote which is free at Bijou Lovely.

As you can see, I had some beautiful birds-in-the-grass fabric (a Moda print) for the inside.

I used a buttonhole stitch to secure the top edge of the Kraft-Tex. Overall, the Kraft-Tex was much easier to use this time. It makes a sturdy bottom for the bag, is washable, and presumably will wear better than a plain fabric bottom.

As before, the Market Bag tutorial was very well done and easy to follow. The only change I made was to revise the way the bottom was attached so that I didn’t have Kraft-Tex in the seams; that would have been quite bulky. I laid the Kraft-Tex on the top fabric and secured the edges with buttonhole stitch just inside the seamline, so it wasn’t necessary to have Kraft-Tex in the seams to hold it in place. That worked a lot better.

Finished Bird Bag

In other words, I am now revising my opinion of Kraft-Tex and probably will use it for this purpose again! It still does’t really look like leather to me, but in this case that isn’t the point.

Becca’s main suggestion was to start ahead of time and try to find people who will be attending, so you’ll have somebody to visit with when you get there.

Fortunately, there will be several people from at least two of my guilds, but of course the point is meeting new people as well as visiting with old friends. So if you’re going, please leave me a note in the comments–I’d like to met you!

Meanwhile, I’ve made two more clusters of sweet pea pods. The pattern is well illustrated and the directions easy to follow 🙂

My husband recently discarded some shirts, so I was interested to see this “Kitchen Shirt Tales” pattern from Indygo Junction.

It looked pretty simple, and I’ve made dozens of aprons over the years, but I decided it was worth the money to buy the pattern rather than having to figure it out on my own. The pattern was downloadable, which added to the appeal–instant gratification!

I was pleased with the way the apron came out, but only because I abandoned the instructions part way through construction.

The instructions were MUCH too complex for a simple garment like this. For example, rather than providing a pattern for the garment in different sizes (if, indeed, one needs a choice of sizes for an apron), the instructions were to measure yourself and then derive the cutting lines through a rather complex formula. After figuring out these measurements, you were instructed to draw the curve for cutting out the top by connecting the measurements.. I did get it drawn just fine, but it would have been so much simpler to just have a pattern piece for cutting out the main body of the apron!

As you can see below, the apron looked just fine on two of my colleagues who are different sizes.

At this point, the instructions became confusing and there were VERY few illustrations. I usually do pretty well with verbal instructions, but the most commercial patterns have a drawing for each step for a reason.

This pattern would need many, many more drawings to be clear. I quit the instructions at that point and made the rest up as I went along.

I still think it is a great idea to recycle a shirt into an apron, and this is cute the way it came out. The pattern, however, could be greatly improved by the addition of a pattern piece for cutting and many additional illustrations.